Director and choreographer Anne Tournié and libretto adapter and co-director Chris Mouron’s colourful version of The Little Prince novella (my French edition is under a hundred pages), that Antoine de Saint-Exupéry pared down and down to essentials, is not modest. Remember that famous quote about seeing with your heart and not your eyes… that the Fox (very acrobatic Killian Mermet) teaches the Prince (Dylan Barone)… they make a lovely pair.
It has had many interpretations in just about every medium you can imagine over the years. In dance form, the latest I saw prior to this large scale rendition was Protein Dance Company’s 2019 Christmas treat for children at The Place, quite a contrast with the vast Coliseum. And you know, I think it worked better for me.
The Little Prince book is small with a big heart and a moral compass. This just under two-hour show is so big, it almost hijacks the story underneath all the truly dazzling special effects (the eyes have it). The show is already a success in the West and in the East—where hasn’t it been…
In French with surtitles, it has a Narrator (Chris Mouron) ever present on the stage, and I wish otherwise. She seems to have stepped from a different fable in her blue hair and tailcoat—is she a bird? Why not have the Narrator in a box like the ‘sheep’ the Aviator (Bednarek Aurélien) draws for the Prince? Or under a giant hat, like his ‘elephant’? Now that would chime with the book. After all, it is about the way a child sees things that adults just can’t access. Make it more surreal fantastic, though I do admit the visuals and video magic provided by adults are very good.
Production values are extremely high: video design by Marie Jumelin; costume design by Peggy Housset; lighting design by Stéphane Fritsch; sound design by Tristan Viscogliosi; video projection by Etienne Beaussart are the show. The performers have to work very hard—they do—to be visible. Terry Truck’s sound score keeps it trucking in a variety of musical genres, suggesting place and culture.
Circus skills and acrobatics dominate the contemporary choreography. The Prince descends on circus straps, balances on a walking globe, hangs in the air with the love of his life the Rose (Marie Menuge). There’s also a Cyr wheel for the Drunkard’s (Edouard Goux) alter ego and much tumbling. But do not expect Cirque du Soleil.
Visual imagination has run riot and is truly fabulous: the Businessman (Filippo Di Crosta) with his projected computer calculations; the King (Patricio Di Stabile) could have stepped out of an Arcimboldo painting; the Snake (Marta Kowalwska) does a wonderful slither down an aerial rope; the Vain Man (Lee Kok Liang) takes selfies.
I love the Lamplighter (Marcin Janiak), the light show, the meteor shower with dancers holding lights, the imaginative back-projection images, but the ever-changing, beautiful backcloths do not ignite for me the underlying poignant message. Saint-Exupéry wrote in a time of war in exile in America. He was a daredevil aviator for the French Resistance; his plane did come down in the Sahara where he nearly died of dehydration but for a Bedouin turning up miraculously out of the blue.
No doubt he had hallucinations. Is the Prince one of them, or is the Prince having hallucinations? Innocent, childlike takes on life before one’s way of seeing conforms. It is second to the Bible in being translated into many languages. It is hopeful and wishful and wistful. It is a parable about loneliness. And seeking to understand the world.
This spectacular musical production has made it sentimental and elaborate with the best intentions, but misses the pathos and sadness and enigma marks for me. There’s even a French chanson to end the evening from Mouron front stage. The Prince or the Aviator should end the evening. In the book, the Prince dies and his body vanishes. The Aviator hopes someone will find him one day. Was Saint-Exupéry foretelling his end? He and his plane vanished on one of his missions.
Here the Prince rises to heaven in resurrection… of the book? This Little Prince marks the 80th anniversary of its publication in French. Olivier d’Agay, great nephew of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, said: “The Little Prince on stage stands as a tribute to the eternal child within, inviting us to rediscover dreams long forgotten and gaze at the stars with renewed wonder.”
Not a bad thing, then, that this huge show, already seen by thousands, has touched the hearts of many—now read the book, which has sold 200 million copies. You can also hear it being read slowly and carefully on YouTube in French with English subtitles if you want to improve your French. At the end, the book’s loose pages fly with the birds in the sky—appropriate image for an aviator. And a reader with imagination…
Reviewer: Vera Liber